St. Thomas Aquinas football coach Troy Burick optimistic for improvement

The numbers are up and so is the optimism for the St. Thomas Aquinas varsity football team this year.

Head coach Troy Burick enters his second season as the Knights’ head coach and has done an excellent job building the tradition-rich program brick by brick. Aquinas has a very rich history in football, having won a state championship in 1984.

“Last year, when I took over, we had four players,” explained Burick of the task he faced at the time. “I didn’t get the job until late June and as we went through the summer we built up the roster to field a team — we were just hoping to have a football team. We had a mass exodus of approximately 25 kids that had played football the year before because they were told things like there won’t be a team or a school, which all was untrue.”

So, Burick rolled up his sleeves and began building the Knights program back up. St. Thomas finished 0-7 last fall but was competitive in some games, including a narrow 24-20 loss to Conotton Valley.

Now a year later, nearly the entire team returns. Burick has built the team back up to 35 players.

“I feel our young guys last year paid a heavy price but learned a ton of lessons,” explained Burick. “As rough as it was, I feel it was extremely valuable moving forward because they kind of hit a low point and there was nothing to do but build the culture our way and how we wanted to do things.”

The silver lining for the Knights from last year’s growing campaign is that 15 letterwinners, almost all of them starters, return this fall.

“We have a lot of experience,” said Burick. “All of our kids are pretty much back and then we have some new kids coming. We are going to be in the mid-30s — I would say 30 is a safe number and it could be as high as 35. I am really pleased with that. I work here in the school as the facilities manager, so every day at lunch I’m in the lunchroom cultivating relationships, as well as in the hallways and classrooms.”

Now sporting a more seasoned team, Burick wants to see his Knights take the next step — and he has the veterans to do just that.

“I feel like our skill positions, starting with our quarterback [Owen Burick] and our wide receivers can match up with pretty much anybody,” he explained. “Before I left Massillon to come over here, he [Owen Burick] was in the No. 1 huddle over at Massillon as a sophomore and he made the decision he wanted to come here [to Aquinas] to help build something and build a legacy and build a program.”

Owen Burick, who is an excellent runner and passer, is looking forward to his second season as the Knights’ starting signal-caller.

“It’s a thousand times better,” said Owen Burick of the second year with basically the same teammates who know the system. “We are starting with two times the amount of kids we started with last year.”

Owen Burick is the son of the coach, who is very impressed with the progress and toughness his son has shown.

“His maturity of being on the field with me from the time he could walk [is a strength],” said Troy Burick. “He knows the offense, so I feel that’s one of our strengths is the communication between he and I. I can sometimes just look at him and he just knows, and that makes it very nice because we do have a new injection of players here.”

Owen loves playing for his father.

“He reads my mind and I read his,” said Owen Burick. “It’s a blessing, and I wouldn’t want to play for anyone else.”

The Knights will use their speed and athleticism to spread the field on offense.

“I always base it on personnel but we’re a spread base, a mixture of a bunch of different philosophies,” stated Troy Burick. “I was a Bill Walsh guy growing up but I’ve also developed some of the Air Raid and five wide stuff. I have my base offense I have every year and then I build it out depending on what type of players I have.”

“At the skill positions we feel like we have a lot of competition,” continued Troy Burick. “We have eight-to-10 guys for those five [starting skill] spots.”

The standouts include Julian Randle, a three-year starter at corner and also a wideout, junior tight end/linebacker Logan Kinsler started both ways last year on both sides of the ball; Julius Kimbrough, a 6-foot-5 receiver; 6-2, 190-pound Markel Garner, a transfer from Canton McKinley, and 6-1, 195-pound wideout Ray’Von Gardener.

“I have skill-position kids who are 6-2, 6-3, 6-5 and 6-1 who are big and strong and who can run,” said Troy Burick.

On defense, the Knights are making a change this season.

“We’ll be a little bit different this year, we’ll be in more of a 4-2-5 look,” explained the Aquinas mentor. “We felt getting a four-man surface on the defensive line would help us stop the run a little bit better. We have to stop the run.”

The Knights’ leader on defense is expected to be nose tackle Jose Smith.

“He [Smith] is a very vocal kid that works hard,” praised Troy Burick. “He had a fantastic sophomore year and he’s going to be a junior and Logan Kinsler is a very vocal, multi-talented player who could probably play anywhere in the back seven. Those guys I look to on defense for our leadership.”

The Knights have dropped from Division VI to Division VII, which could help their playoff chances.

“We are where we are right now and going down to Division VII I’m sure there will be challenges and there are good football teams in that division too, but I’m not upset that I don’t have to beat Mogadore twice because they were in our [D6] region,” said Troy Burick.

As far as the league race goes, Burick knows it will be competitive in the Portage Trail Conference with Mogadore, Rootstown, Warren JFK, Southeast and Aquinas comprising the loop slate.

“I feel like it’s a very strong league,” said Troy Burick. “They’re all well coached and they all play hard with good quality programs. We have to respect them all equally and prepare for them.”

The Knights have added three new opponents this season in Smithville, East Canton and Windham, which replace Danville, Conotton Valley and Wilmington (Pa.) on the schedule.

Owen Burick said the Knights will take things one game at a time.

“There are a lot of new teams but they are faceless — we hit the guy across from us [each week] and we can’t beat ourselves,” he said.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: St. Thomas Aquinas football looks for improvement after winless season